The capability of organizing information has grown along with the ever-increasing availability of information. A typical software application for organizing stored information on a personal computer (e.g., laptop, desktop, etc.), organizes the information as multiple files within each of multiple directories. Typically, a user may have hundreds or even thousands of files organized within scores of directories. Such files may contain text entered from a keyboard, or other types of electronic files including pictures, executable programs, sounds, videos or any type of binary file.
To facilitate locating and accessing this information, desktop search functionality has been developed. Such functionality may be implemented as an independent search application or as part of an application for which search functionality is deemed beneficial. For example, a word processing application may provide search functionality so that stored information may be located and incorporated into a document created using the word processing application.
Disadvantages arise when a particular application does not provide functionality that would benefit the application. For example, some e-mail messaging applications do not provide a search capability within the application itself. For such e-mail messaging applications, when a user wishes to attach a file to an e-mail message, the user must know the location of the file to be attached. That is, typically, when the attach file functionality is initiated, the user is presented with a file dialog box, the user must then navigate through the various drives, directories, sub-directories, and files to locate the desired file. This is time-consuming and often futile if the user is not aware of the particular drive, directory, and file name of the desired file.
Even where the application provides desired functionality, the functionality provided may not be as effective as an independent application providing such functionality. For example, where search capability is provided in a word processing application the search capability provided is often not as effective as an independent search application. Therefore the user of such a word processing application may not be able to take advantage of improvements in search capability.
There are many reasons for this including the development time for more complex applications. That is, an application may take months or years to develop. During this time, particular functionality provided by the application may have become obsolete, or an independent application that provides superior functionality has been developed. It is not practical at that point to revise the application to incorporate the superior functionality. Moreover, the superior functionality is often developed independently of the manufacturer of the application. Such manufacturers are reluctant to incorporate independent functionality (even superior functionality) within their products.
For example, a vast source of available information may be found on internet-related networks (e.g. the World Wide Web (Web)) or other Internet sources and Internet search functionality is available. However, Internet search capability is not provided within many applications that would benefit from such functionality. For example, consider a user of a word processing application or an e-mail messaging application who wishes to search the Web for particular information and incorporate that information into their document or e-mail message. Such a user must initiate an independent Web search functionality, obtain the desired information, through, for example, a copy operation, and incorporate the desired information into their document or e-mail message, through for example, a paste, attach, or append operation. This interaction between the user and the several applications is time-consuming and prone to error.
The disadvantages described above in reference to the implementation of search capability (desktop or Internet) in relation to word processing applications or e-mail messaging applications are equally applicable to a wide variety of applications and functionality. Thus, in general, personal computers provide a number of software applications each of which provide various functionality. Such applications often lack specific functionality that may be beneficial in the context of the application; or provide substandard functionality of a specific type. Due to the fact that applications are produced by various manufacturers, it may not be possible or practical for a manufacturer to incorporate specific functionality (or optimum functionality) within a given application.